The Semantic Web is an effort led by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) aiming to allow the exchange and reuse of data by formalizing the meaning of information. As a classic means of knowledge representation, ontologies play a vital role in this effort. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) and RDF Schema (RDFS) are the W3C recommendations for ontology definition. They are increasingly being used to define ontologies which serve as reference models in a specific domain (e.g., the ISO 15926 Oil & Gas ontology).
Currently, the majority of conventional software engineers typically neither have knowledge in Semantic Web languages such as RDFS, nor do they have the time for familiarizing themselves with the new technology. Yet, at the same time, Semantic Web languages are increasingly being used for specifying reference models on which software has to be built. Therefore, conventional software developers are prompted to build software on the basis of such ontologies.